Parking Lot

1) Decisive victory of the Irish in ND.
2) 2 TD win at home against top 10 Wisconsin.
3) Close loss against #1 OSU away.

The case against UM:

1) Only quality wins on the entire schedule so far are Notre Dame and Wisconsin. Does a close loss to the #1 team count (in the eyes of the voters and BCS) as a win in college football?

2) Outside of independent Notre Dame, UM's out of conference W's have come against the likes of Vanderbilt, Central Michigan and Ball State.

The case for SC (should they beat Notre Dame and UCLA):

1) The toughest SOS left out of the 1 loss teams.

2) If they beat ND, they will have quality wins over BCS #5 (ND will drop should SC win this weekend), BCS # 6, BCS #19 and BCS #22. All in one season.

3) Undefeated out of conference schedule which does not include Central Michigan, Vanderbilt and Ball State.

Case against SC:

1) Loss to unranked Oregon State.

2) Early close victories in conference play to "sub-par" opponents (Wazzou, ASU, Washington).

Verdict:

Should SC win out, their SOS puts them in Glendale. UM's quality win against Notre Dame will be matched by USC's win. Even if SC's margin of victory at home against the Irish is less than UM's margin away, it won't matter to the BCS.

Michigan's only other quality win is against conference foe Wisconsin. SC matches conference strength with wins over Cal and Oregon (who is no longer ranked). The difference is the out of conference play: SC destroyed the SEC West champion (Arkansas) 50-14 in Fayetteville and soundly beat the Big 12 North champion, Nebraska.

Who deserves to get shut out of the national championship game? A team whose one loss was to an unranked team in conference, even though their record includes wins over 4 BCS ranked opponents (2 of which are sectional conference champions)? Or a team who has quality wins over 2 BCS ranked teams and a close loss to the best team away?

I'm all for a playoff, but we have what we have... the crappy BCS. Until a playoff happens, the BCS system basically means every weekend is a playoff game for D1 football (unless every team except one loses a game- then it's a mess of computer crunching). If you have a rematch for the national championship, doesn't that make this past weekend's game b/t OSU and UM irrelevant? What if Michigan beats OSU in the Fiesta Bowl? Is the winner really the champ if both teams have one loss and that was to each other? If so, then we're going with the argument the NFL uses: whoever wins at the end is champion regardless.

If that's the case, SC should definitely be in the game. They dominated the SEC and Big 12's best at the start of the season. they struggled with conference games at the beginning of Pac-10 play. Now, Pete Carroll has the team rolling in November... this is the trademark of Trojan football. SC may not be on the same level as OSU right now, but the team is peaking when the best are suppose to peak... in November. Let me ask this to you guys: what is the closer indicator of SC's team right now... the team that lost to Oregon State a month ago? or the SC team who has beaten their last three opponents (two of which were ranked at the time) 100-19 since that loss?

Don't know how many college football programs can lose 2 Heisman winners, have freshmen and sophomores at more than half the starting positions (which include brand new running backs), start a new QB, lose a starting safety for the year in game 1 and be forced to start the 4th string fullback... all while ending up in a position to go to the natty. You want to give OSU the opponent who is playing the best in November... and with the way SC is playing now, there's no way you deny them.